"105.0"^^ . "Merle Travis songs" . "1996-03-18"^^ . "-0.908776"^^ . . "903" . "Number-one singles in Australia" . "Tennessee Ernie Ford songs" . "GBF076700280" . "189000.0"^^ . "english" . "-16.5"^^ . "Sixteen Tons" . "false"^^ . . "Billboard Hot Country Songs number-one singles" . "Songs written by Merle Travis" . . "1955 singles" . "%22Sixteen Tons%22 is a song about a coal miner, based on life in coal mines in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. It was written and first recorded by Merle Travis at the Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California on August 8, 1946. Cliffie Stone played bass on the recording. It was first released by Capital on the album Folk Songs of the Hills (July 1947).The line, %22You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt,%22 came from a letter written by Travis' brother John. Another line came from their father, a coal miner, who would say, %22I can't afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store.%22A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts, while another version by Frankie Laine was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford's version competition.On March 25, 2015 it was announced that Ford's version of the song will be inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry." . "22e427e3-6ea1-47f3-ac79-35b66f4b27a0" . "-0.0685118"^^ . . "5714deea25ac0d8aee55c01c" . "United States National Recording Registry recordings" . "Sixteen Tons" . "1183873" . . "6"^^ . . "eng" . "Billboard Top 100 number-one singles" . "6"^^ . . . "1946 songs" . "300625"^^ . "false"^^ . "false"^^ . "Eric Burdon songs" . "The Platters songs" . .